Imperial College London, Huawei to Open Big Data-Focused Lab

Imperial College London is teaming up with information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider Huawei to invest in and open a data science lab to be dubbed the Imperial College - Huawei Data Science Innovation Laboratory. Both the ICT firm and the college say the new lab will bring Imperial’s faculty and researchers from Huawei together to develop new applications using data science research in areas including healthcare.

According to Imperial, the Imperial College - Huawei Data Science Innovation Laboratory represents the first major corporate partnership within its new Data Science Institute, the aim of which is to cultivate collaborations between Imperial's experts and research partners to develop big data technologies. Imperial and Huawei signed a memorandum of understanding back in July where they both agreed to look for a chance to team up; the new lab is a product of that memorandum.

Per the collaboration, Huawei will invest in equipment including cloud-computing servers, a research and innovation fund; it will also spring for the new lab's operational costs.

"By bringing its experts together with our engineers we believe we can create new products and services that will harness the huge potential of big data," said William Xu, CEO of Huawei Enterprise Business Group, in a statement. "This collaboration with Imperial also bolsters the wider partnership program we have with British universities, which includes working with other institutions around the U.K. on the 5G technologies that will revolutionize how we communicate in the future."